In our society, where X (formerly Twitter) hashtags appear on TV, Facebook, news and magazines, some people tweet several times an hour. Others only tweet once in a blue moon. Whatever your situation, there are security and privacy implications you should consider before tweeting your next insult or sending that adorable cat photo to your followers.
Do not add your location to the Tweet
X features the option to add your location to every tweet. While this may be a cool feature for some, it can be a major security risk for others.
Think about it for a second – if you add your location to a tweet, then that lets people know where you are and where you aren’t. You could put out a tweet telling everyone how much you’re enjoying your vacation in the Bahamas, and any criminal stalking you in X might decide this would be a good time to rob your house.
To stop including your location with your tweets, click Tweet button at the top of your X screen to open Create a new tweet box. Change the location icon at the bottom of the new tweet to INACTIVE position. The location feature remains disabled for future tweets unless you enable it again. On mobile devices, go to your device Privacy settingsfind location services, and select never next to X
To delete locations from all old tweets using a browser, go to your X’s Privacy and Security settings, click Privacy and Security in the left panel to expand the options and click Delete location information.
Remove geotag information from your photos
When you post a photo on Twitter, there’s a chance that the location information that many camera phones add to the photo file’s metadata can be accessed by anyone viewing the photo. Anyone with an EXIF viewer app that can read the location information embedded in a photo can determine where the photo was taken.
Some celebrities have accidentally revealed the location of their home by not removing geotags from their photos before tweeting them.
You can remove geotag information using apps such as deGeo (iOS) or Geo Editor (Android).
Enable X’s privacy and security options
X offers other security options in the Security and Privacy settings that you should enable if you haven’t already.
Select Tweet Privacy the option to limit who gets your tweets instead of just making them public.
uncheck Photo tagging option to allow anyone to tag you in photos. Also, turn off options that allow others to find you by your email address or phone number. You can also disable the ability to receive direct messages in this section.
Keep personal information out of your profile
Given that the Twittersphere seems to be much more public than Facebook, it’s wise to keep personal details to a minimum on your X profile. Leave your phone numbers, email addresses, and other pieces of personal information that might be primed to be harvested by SPAM bots and internet criminals.
Remove X apps you don’t use or don’t recognize
As with Facebook, X can have its share of fraudulent or unwanted apps. If you don’t remember installing an X app or you no longer use it, you can revoke access to the app that has access to the data in your account. You do this by Applications tab in your X Account settings.
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